


Critical Craft

by FanFicBias



Category: Mage: The Ascension, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: College, Ensemble Cast, Fate, Female Characters, Fire Magic, Forces, Funny, Gen, Mages, Magic, Original Character(s), Sorcerers, Telekinesis, Teleportation, Weather, White Wolf - Freeform, fire squids, gravity - Freeform, mage the ascension - Freeform, magical duels, order of hermes, super speed, verbenna
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 22:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18980026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanFicBias/pseuds/FanFicBias
Summary: Based on the series Mage: The Ascension by White Wolf, this is a story about a few college students who stumble upon the world of magic. It's your number one source for ghost chameleons, fire squids, and giant metal armadillos. R and R would be cool. Thanks. reality-zero(dot)com for more non-fanfic fiction and other stuff.(Note-reposted from fanfic.net since I plan on adding more to it. Yes, it really is me on both accounts. Lost the login for fanfic)Now Updating again! (hopefully)





	Critical Craft

Boston College, Apartment 104

"Mirvin, if you don't get away from that computer right now, I'm going to chuck both it, and you, out the window. You are going to end an old stupid geezer if you don't get out more." Hal was only half yelling this time. He was beginning to give up on making Mirvin actually live a little. He was-

"I can't leave the room yet. The star trek forums still need me" came the nasally reply from upstairs. Hal really wished that Residence Education had given them someone different for a roommate. ANYONE. He would've been fine with a llama, or a robot.

The stupid kid was wasting his life, and the worst part was that it actually made Hal angry for some reason; it was completely-

"Oh no! Star Trek Voyager is on!" Hal heard Mirvin say, as his freakishly large head suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. Hal slapped a hand to his face.

It was the only thing that ever got that kid out of his room. Hal just knew there was a real person behind those giant horn-rimmed glasses, suspenders, greasy brown hair and the star trek t-shirt.

Hal's grouchy mood deepened. He began to approach Mirvin, who had now reached the bottom of the stairs. He was skittering toward Hal on his tiny legs, his head pointed down and away. Mirvin was concertedly trying to ignore his bulkier, intimidating roommate as if simply not looking at him would make Hal go away. Hal was about put out a hand to halt Mirvin in his comical dance-walk, but just then the phone rang. Hal cursed. That's right- he had been expecting a phone call from his hockey coach. Hal ran to the phone. Mirvin would have to wait.

While talking on the phone with his coach, Hal couldn't help but be distracted by the conversation in front of him. Mirvin was on the couch now, looking out of place as he tried to rigidly sit on their big apartment couch. It sagged with even Mirvin's negligible weight, appearing to swallow his lower body. Two of Hal's other roommates, Derek and Collin, were sitting on other side of Mirvin and picking up where Hal had left off.

  
Derek was sitting to the left of Mirvin. He had a bit of those 'pushy-jock' genes in him, and it showed physically. He made Mirvin looked like a chew toy when he sat next to him. Derek was delivering his ultimatum at present.

"Mirvin, you are going with us tonight. If I have to come home one more time from the bar and hear your nasally voice sniff 'Oh I'm so alone, no one cares about Mirvin' I'm going to shoot you in the head. Repeatedly. For once, Hal has a point. You are coming."

Instead of answering, Mirvin continued squirming and trying to get the TV remote away from Derek, who was holding it out of Mirvin's limited reach with very little effort. Collin, who had been watching something on TV, suddenly paused and looked up in thought after hearing Derek's comment.

"Hmm, well... I HAVE been wanting to call in a favor from my friend in the biology lab." He brightened. "I could get some chloroform; it would be easy to bring the little guy down that way!"

Derek turned to glare at Collin without lowering his arm, which Mirvin was now trying to climb up to reach the prize of the TV remote at the top, again with little success.

"No, he can't be unconscious. It has to be fun."

  
Collin looked at Derek, a blank expression on his face.

  
There was silence. Derek's expression hardened.  
"Fun for him I mean. Not you."  
Collin pouted. "Awww but I hear that chloroform makes people all sleepy and they say funny things. Come on, we gotta try it."

"Hal? Hal? You get all that?"

  
Hall suddenly realized that he had just totally zoned out on his hockey coach. He told him that- yes he had gotten the times of the practices and everything, and said goodbye.

Right as he hung up, the last missing roommate, Rich, walked in carrying part of a hockey stick on his shoulder like a rifle. He marched in the door, and gravely placed his stick in a corner, as if it were a weapon. Hal resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. The kid didn't even use it to freakin play hockey. There had to be some law against that.

He glanced back at the couch. Mirvin was muttering about "Star Trek: Voyager" under his breath, and still trying to climb Derek's muscular arm. Collin and Derek were talking about what they could possibly do tonight, anyway.

They hadn't noticed Rich enter yet, since they were on a couch facing away from the door. He quietly snuck up behind them, and then suddenly grabbed both their shoulders, pushed his head in between them and grinned widely.

"Vertigo?" he asked, suggestively.

Collin turned around, startled "Whoa man, you're like a ninja or something." If it were possible, Hal would say that Rich's smile got even wider. Hal frowned. Collin shouldn't encourage him like that. But still... it had been a while since they had been to that club...

"Oh no- there will many persons there. And I cannot enter a building named after a motion sickness- thank you, thank you anyway." Mirvin said with feigned sincerity, now practically dangling from Derek's forearm.

Derek smiled and stood up, Mirvin hanging off his arm like a worm on a hook. "Mirvin, you are coming. If need be I'll carry you there..." He paused dramatically. "What shape you arrive there in is up to you."

  
"Uh oh, that sounds dangerous", Mirvin said, just before losing a hold on Derek's arm and tumbling into the ground.

  
Hal wasn't sure whether it was the booze or what, but he suddenly felt boisterously happy. Here he was back in Vertigo again after so long away. The pounding music was just far enough away to allow conversation, the lights turning everything odd colors, and best of all- beer. With MIRVIN no less! He clapped a hand on Mirvin's shoulder, rocking the kid's frame violently. How could he not be happy? MIRVIN, his anti-social roommate was at a BAR with him. And he was DRINKING! And he was even acting like a normal kid. Getting him drunk seemed to have a de-nerdifying effect on him.

"Dude Mirvin," Hal began, after downing another beer, "You came with us tonight. It's unbelievable. And you dropped that weird nasal voice."

Hal paused, and then addressed his next comment to a near-drunk Derek, who was dancing half-hazard with two or three girls right behind Mirvin. "Dude, I told you, man, I knew it was fake." Derek appeared to be busy grinding, and so Hal turned his attention back to Mirvin, who was looking forlornly at a smashed laptop case in his lap.

"I think you broke him," Mirvin said sadly, stroking the case, actually putting irony into his voice.

Hal laughed rowdily and slapped Mirvin hard on the back again. "Ha ha! Don't worry little bud; you have like 6 more at home! Have another drink!" Hal was suddenly distracted by something, and Mirvin took the opportunity to whisper a word of encouragement to his laptop "Do not worry Leonardo; I will fix you as soon as possible. You will kick posterior again in no time interval of any real length."

"Anyway Mirvin, like I was saying- no one would hold it against you if you dropped the act permanently. Like you wouldn't lose your Nerd-Club card or anything would you? I mean-"

At that moment a voice from behind cut him off. Again.

"Hey guys, look what I found in the bathroom," Hal was suddenly afraid to turn around then, but he did anyway. It was Rich. He was holding Collin by the jacket lapel. Collin looked like he was about to fall over, he also looked oddly pale- like he had just been sick. Hal noticed that Rich was wearing his grey jacket with the blue arrows on the sleeve again. And there was a distinctive hump in the back, by his neck. It was the decapitated hockey stick. Rich had taken the plastic head off of it, so he could use it like a staff.

He wondered how Rich would feel if he was decapitated and jammed into some punk's jacket? No. This was ridiculous. Hal tried not to think about it. But still, there was something inherently wrong about defacing a perfectly good hockey stick like that, there just was. He decided to talk to Collin, before he used Rich's mutilated hockey stick to carve him a new one.

"Yo, Collin. What were you doing in the bathroom? We've been lookin' for you man, where've you been?"

Collin looked at Hal in a way that made Hal sure that Collin had some sort of secret. Probably something really dumb that made Collin think he was God, by the looks of it.

Hal swiveled on the bar chair to look at Collin. "What is it, man? What could you possibly be so happy about?"

Collin smiled and then gave Hal an exaggerated wink. "I was mackin it in the bathroom. Ohh yeah, you know it." Collin tried to wink again, but it looked more like a twitch.

Rich rolled his eyes. "Yeah right. When I went in there you were bent over the toilet-". But Hal never got to find out what Collin had been doing with the toilet.

There was a loud explosion, with so much volume and force that it had to be close. The room seemed to shake; Hal felt a tremor under his feet. The dancing and music stopped, the lights flickered. There were shouts and screams, and the sound of glass shattering on the floor from a startled server.

A few stunned seconds elapsed- everything was quiet as if the entire room had been shocked into a hush

Then everyone around Hal seemed to start talking at once. But Hal didn't hear them. He immediately stood up and looked around the room. He didn't see anything that could've caused the blast. It must be someone outside. What jerks, playing a prank now, just as he was having a good time.

He should go look, but... Hal had a thought. That was a pretty intense explosion. He should go figure out what was happening but- someone had to go with him, just in case. He looked around for Derek. The one redeeming thing about Derek was that he was built like a friggin tank. Hal had muscles, but not like Derek.

He found him a ways ahead, making his way through the crowd. The girls he had been with were nowhere to be seen. Derek also seemed determined to head to the door to find out what had happened. He was muttering angrily to himself. His path cleared fairly quickly, between people seeing a hulking body-builder stomping down towards them, and the people who were already crawling under tables anyway. Hal was about to go catch up with him when suddenly there was another loud sound- a clang of metal on metal.

The double metal doors in front of Derek suddenly blew off their hinges, sailing through the air in opposite directions. They crashed into empty tables at either side of the cavernous room, splintering wood. A man in a simple trench coat came hurtling through the air to slam into a bar stool right next to Hal, crunching it and sending pieces of wood flying.

Dazed, the man tumbled off of the former bar stool and staggered to his feet. The man was of average height, had brown hair, short stubble, and looked completely exhausted. As Hal's eyes traveled down the man's body, he noticed that the front of his trench coat was red. It was blood. The man had been shot. Hal was about to say something when he noticed movement back at the door. He turned to look. There were three men in the doorway now, all in jet-black trench coats, and each wearing a black hat. They moved in tandem, each stepping into the bar at the exact same moment, with the same movement. And all three had machine guns raised.

Hal gaped. "Who are they? What the FREAK is going on? And who the HELL are you?" The man immediately jumped forward with surprising energy. Hal glanced around. All his roommates were there, except Derek, who was between the gunmen and Hal. Presently, he threw himself out of the way. The strange wounded man stepped in front of Hal, Rich, Collin, and Mirvin at the bar, and raised his arms, palms open. He spoke to them over his shoulder.

"I'm Dan. Now shut up and stay behind me."

  
The three men in the doorway opened fire. Mirvin let loose with a girlish scream, but Hal could do nothing but stare. He was going to die and all he could think of was why the man in front of him was...  
Suddenly the man's hands began glowing a bright yellow color, and the gunfire immediately parted way around him, like a swarm of tiny black bees, running away from fire. The rounds slammed into the bar behind them, shattering bottles and sending frothy liquid everywhere.

No one moved, they were too stunned. Except glowy-hands man. And the three gunmen. They were reloading.

The stranger winced, putting his hand over his wound, and turned his head over a shoulder to look at them. Some thought seemed to flicker in his eyes, and he gave a little nod as if making a split second decision.

"You. All of you! Get in close behind me. Hurry." This time Hal burst into action in an instant. He grabbed Mirvin and slung him right behind the strange man. Rich and Collin followed suit.

  
"Now don't move." He closed his eyes. Immediately something happened. Hal looked down in front of him. There was... something coming out of the stranger's feet. It looked like a blue substance, and it was spreading along underneath them quickly. When it had spread completely underneath them, it began crawling up around them, looking like translucent blue glass. It was quickly crystallizing, higher and higher, spreading upwards in an encircling sphere of blue. When it had gone over all of their heads, it spread inwards, closing them in a big blue bubble.

Hal tried to think, tried to make some thought, any thought, come into his head, but he felt completely empty, completely blank. Maybe he had had too much to drink. Maybe he was passed out on the bar right now.

He looked out of the bubble at the rest of the dance club. The gunmen were still reloading. But the scene was starting to look- distant somehow, as if he was watching the bar on TV, instead of being there himself. Except it looked like someone had put blue cellophane over the screen. He looked down again. The floor was receding from his feet. He was several meters off the ground now. But he wasn't falling. The feeling of distance increased, and suddenly his surroundings began to fade. At first, everything just started looking indistinct, like the TV screen was losing focus. But then all the shapes lost their borders, they swirled and merged. Into blue. Soon all he could see was a landscape of featureless blue, all around him.

While the room was fading from view, there were the general disbelieving statements from his roommates, none of them terribly helpful. He glanced down. Mirvin appeared to be on the "floor" rocking back and forth like a baby. Collin reached out a tentative hand to tap the stranger's shoulder.

"What's going on?" He asked. "What are you doing, I don't get... wait- look, it's Derek! We have to go back for him! Derek, we're right here! Come on!" The three gunmen were looking around confusedly now. They didn't appear to see Hal's group. They turned their heads to scan the room and their eyes fell on Derek, who was also looking in Hal's direction, not seeming to see anything. He didn't appear to hear they're calling him either. The gunmen were putting their guns away now. Derek turned suddenly, hearing their approach. They jumped on him, and he struggled valiantly, but amazingly they seemed too strong, even for Derek's bulk. They began dragging him out of the bar. It was at that point that Hal's surroundings faded completely. Collin opened his mouth to try speaking to this weird freak- "Dan" but he was cut off before he could begin.

"Busy" was all Dan said. Abruptly the man groaned and fell to one knee. His face was contorted with pain, and Hal once again noticed the blood on his trench coat. It was dripping now, adding a touch of red to all the blue. As it collected, it fell into a puddle and spread along the 'floor' of the sphere.

Collin's eyes drifted down to Dan's stomach. They widened. "Holy crap you've been shot, are you ok?"

Dan didn't answer. Instead, he closed his eyes, his breathing coming out in ragged gasps. He winced again and forced himself to stand up shakily, wobbling on his feet. All the while his face twisted from pain and concentration. He closed his eyes for a moment, took a raggedy deep breath, and then appeared to stabilize himself somewhat.

Abruptly shapes starting appearing outside of their world again. It slowly faded in, and the bubble appeared to alight slowly on a hard wooden floor. Hal looked around through the blue-tinted bubble. There were shelves and shelves of books along the walls of this new room, the shelves going up for 20 feet at least. Each book was as thick as a dictionary and looked older than mud.

Then the bubble disappeared, and the red blood pooling on the floor immediately splattered on the ground. Dan gave out an explosive sigh and suddenly collapsed as if he had just let go of something really heavy. He fell over onto his side, chest heaving. His brown hair fell over his eyes, which now closed.

"Get help...front door." He breathed, clutching his gaping stomach wound. Hal looked around. There were several people staring at them, many wearing cloaks, but some wearing normal looking clothes too. But he had said the front door. Ok.

Without looking around at anyone, Hal immediately ran to two towering hard-wood doors and pushed them open. He was now in a large room; there were many desks in it. They were arranged in a horseshoe shape, with one side of the curve directly to his left. Several men at the desks in front of him looked up sharply as he entered.

Upon entering, Hal was struck at once by a strange feeling. He felt a flush in his face as if there was an invisible open flame right in front of him. And at the same time, he felt a chill, a creeping along his spine. And right after this, he felt a foreign feeling of intense nerves, like he had entered a hockey game with no practice beforehand. There were no apparent sources to any of these feelings, nothing Hal could observe in the room. The feelings leveled out after a moment, but the feeling that something wasn't right remained.

In the far wall of the room, were a few windows, and in the wall to Hal's immediate left there were also a few. The problem was the windows were normal in every way except that the windows showed a scene of complete blackness. It wasn't that they were opaque, Hal was sure he could see out them. It was just that it almost looked like he was looking directly out into space, except there were no stars, no suns, and no planets. It was just expansive black. Hal decided to not look out the windows anymore.

Movement in the far back left corner of the room caught Hal's eye. He tore himself away from the void windows and stared in awe at a contest ongoing in a big open space in the back. There were two teenagers, staring at each other, and several feet part on a raised platform. In front of the platform, was an old man wearing a brown cloak. The youths were laughing-and throwing balls of fire. They were ducking and rolling, and sometimes one would 'catch' a ball of fire from the other, and it would extinguish as soon as it hit their hand. Once in a while one would throw a fireball at the other, and the other would hold out a hand, which would glow yellow, and the fireball would veer off course and hit an empty desk in the middle of the room, causing it to immediately burst into flames. The old man with the cloak would calmly stretch out a hand and extinguish it. They were like kids playing with matches.

Several yards directly in front of him was a desk several times larger than the others. It had multiple computer screens arrayed in front of one man with headphones around his neck who was sitting down. He was speaking with another man who was standing next to him. The standing man was dressed all in white, with a white cloak, white pants, and even an ornate white cane. He looked sharply at Hal as he walked into the room.

The man sprinted towards them saying, "Who are you? Can I help you? I don't think..." He cursed in alarm when his eyes pushed passed Hal to his roommates and... Dan, who was back in the library room, was on the ground bleeding.

Hal was instantly pulled back to reality, trying not to think about what he'd seen in this room. The guy who had most likely saved his life was hurt. He needed to help.  
"Your friend needs help." He said sheepishly, standing in the doorway with everyone staring at him.  
"Hey, Dan's injured over here, come take him to the Medical Wing!" The man in white shouted over his shoulder, as he ran past Hal to enter the room with the books. A few men in blue, red, and brown cloaks also rushed past Hal in a moment, as he stood there, trying to decide what to do. Hal hoped Dan would be ok.

Hal turned and walked back into the library. Rich and Collin were gathered around Dan's fallen form. Mirvin was sitting on the ground a little ways a way by himself, muttering about something. Hal decided to ignore him for now.

The man in white knelt beside his fallen comrade, real concern on his face. "Dan. Tell me what happened," he said.

Dan smiled weakly. "Black Hats. Three of them. They ambushed me when I was on my way to the bar. I don't know how they found me. These four were an accident. I couldn't leave them back there. They had one more friend, but I couldn't save him, there was no time. The Black Hats..."

The man in white smiled reassuringly. "Ok. I'll take care of it, don't worry. You'll be back to drinking yourself under a table in no time."

Just then three or four of the men the man in white had called crowded around Dan, blocking out Hal's view. He thought he saw a flicker of light for a moment, coming from within the circle the cloaked men made around Dan, but then it was gone. They supported his weight and then carried him back in the direction of the room with the desks.

The two wooden doors closed behind the men carrying Dan, and then the man in white turned to face Hal and the other roommates. Immediately questions sprung out of mouths, in a torrent.

"Black Hats? Who are they? Were they those guys who attacked us at Vertigo?" asked Rich.

"What happened to Derek? Where did those guys take him? Will he be ok? How do we get him back? And what is this place? Who are you guys? Will your friend, this Dan guy, be ok? He WAS shot in the stomach you do realize" Hal said, sounding demanding.

"Your friend made me lose Leonardo. He was my friend and he was l33t and it's your fault!" Mirvin added angrily.

The man in white smiled patiently and waited. He arched an eyebrow and looked at Collin who had been staring at him openly. After a moment a satisfied expression appeared on Collin's face as if he had just figured something out.

"Well? Don't you have a question for me?" The man in white said, tapping his white cane on the ground idly. Collin frowned, paused a moment, looked at the floor in thought and then looked back up and asked, "Are you an angel pimp?" Hal considered whether he should clobber Collin across the room. He decided it would have to wait for later.

The man stood looking at Collin for a second, and then very obviously turned away from him to look back at Hal. He extended a hand.

"Ok, first off, my name is Jeremiah. We might as well be acquainted before I address your questions."

"Yo man. I'm Hal. Good to meet ya." Hal grabbed his hand and gave it a sturdy shake.  
"Hi. I'm Rich." Said Rich, shaking Jeremy's hand next, his expression level. Jeremy nodded, and then looked expectantly at the other two. Mirvin was sitting on the ground still, looking up accusingly at Jeremy, and Collin was looking at him suspiciously as if he didn't accept his last answer.

Hal rolled his eyes.

  
"Ok, the freak on the ground with the big head is Mirvin. And the freak with no brain is Collin."

Jeremy nodded. He then turned to Hal. "I'm afraid I can't answer many of your questions. To tell you the truth, it would be much better for all of you if you just forgot about everything that happened tonight. And as far as Dan goes, don't worry about him. He will be fine."

Rich narrowed his eyes. "What about our friend? We can't leave Derek behind."

Jeremiah held up a hand in appeasement.  
"Your friend should return on his own. I will come by to check how you are all doing in a week's time. If your friend has not returned by then, we will deal with it."

Hal shook his head.  
"No way man, no freaking way. You are going to take us right back to Vertigo right now, and we are going to get our friend back from those goons. Either that or I'll bash your hippy head in."

Jeremy didn't even blink.  
"If you go back to this, Vertigo, now- you will most likely be shot immediately. This is because they saw you leave with one of ours. Please, you must trust me. Your friend is in no real danger. Most likely the Black Hats simply brought away your friend to ask him questions about Daniel. Since your friend knows nothing, there is nothing to worry about. It is not in our enemy's best interests to harm him. We have protected you this far, and you are unharmed. Please trust me just a little bit further. I assure you that I will help you reunite with your friend in due time, however that may need to be done."

He turned and looked at Mirvin. He frowned for a moment, and then nodded to himself.

  
"I will even compensate you for your computer, to prove that you can trust us." He turned and walked briskly back to the double wooden doors. He creaked one open and stuck his head in.

Hal heard him shout, "Hey Michael, would you come here for a moment please?" After a few seconds, the man who had been sitting in front of the computer terminals earlier shot into their room, still on his rolling chair. He spun himself in a circle and then said "Yo Jeremiah, what is goin' on? Hey, wow man, stop spinnin' so much dude, I can barely keep up with you."

Jeremiah smiled and waited patiently until Michael stopped spinning. Then he pointed to Mirvin and said "This gentleman lost his computer because of us. It was a laptop I believe, do you have a spare you could loan him perhaps?"

Michael sprung up from his chair. He was wearing a bunch of electronic equipment that was beeping and buzzing and flashing. He had headphones wrapped around his neck, which appeared to connect into one of the contraptions on his hip. Michael frowned a moment, then reached into a backpack on his back for a moment. His face brightened and he pulled out a laptop the size of a placemat.

"Sure, no problem. It's cool man. Here take this little dude. I bet it's way more rockin' than anything you've ever seen before anyway. Later!" He tossed the computer at Mirvin, which landed in his lap. He then hopped back onto his rolling chair and zoomed back into the office room.

Mirvin's eyes grew wide as he powered up the machine, and was soon happily typing away.

"Ok, let's get you folks home now. If you could just imagine your apartment for me, it would be most helpful. Don't ask me why, it's just an easy little trick I know."

Hal frowned, but in the end decided to go along with this Jeremy punk. Truth was he was really tired, and a little drunk. He had had enough for one day. He closed his eyes pictured their college apartment, and in a moment he felt Jeremiah touch him lightly on the forehead. After about a minute he opened them again, and once more Hal and his roommates were in a blue bubble, surrounded by a field of solid blue. Hal looked down at Mirvin. He didn't even seem to notice. Hal felt like he should be terrified out of his mind at what had happened tonight, but for some reason, he didn't care anymore. It was all part of the same hallucination, and he had already had this particular one once already.

After they appeared back at the college apartment, they all said goodbye to Jeremiah. Hal told everyone that he was beat and was going to bed. As he settled into his covers, he decided that in the morning he would make himself certain that this had all been a bad drunken hallucination. He would share a good laugh about it even, with his good friend Derek.

After a moment sleep took him, and he worried about nothing.


End file.
